


you got it the first time, so you can do it again (probably)

by Civillain



Category: One Piece
Genre: Art, Completely, Friendship, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Stupidity, Time Travel, franky's speedo, he has noodle arms now, if you could call it that, no one cares about buggy, probably, they're gone, usopp loses his muscles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-07-27 15:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20048485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Civillain/pseuds/Civillain
Summary: All of the Straw-Hat crew supposedly travels back in time.All of them except for their captain, apparently.They return at the respective time they first met Monkey D. Luffy, and as they all reunite with each other, the guilt from keeping such a secret from their captain begins to hit them hard. Obviously, they'd need to tell him the truth.The only problem is that he's too stupid to understand.THIS IS SO BAD





	1. Zoro

It all came rushing back to him in an instant.

Blinking perplexedly, he realized that he was in the marine base in Shells Town, strapped to a wooden post and half-starved. His arms were secured tightly with ropes, and splinters poked into his skin. The heat was exhaustively burning.  
Zoro scowled. 

Years of adventures and idiocy (of family and friends) had crammed themselves into his head all at once, and while the headache sucked ass, the sense of exhilaration and the thrill coursing through his veins was worth the nine days he knew he had spent here. (probably nine days, it could've still been the first day for all he knew)  
He hung there for a while, closing his eyes and doing his best to remember how the first meeting with his captain had gone.  
If he didn't play his cards right, chances were that everything would go horribly wrong.

Ah.

There were two faces peeking at him from over the fence. 

Distant chattering made its way to his ears, and he almost couldn't restrain himself from looking up with a fierce glare. He'd have to follow the script he laid out in his head if he wanted this to go smoothly. 

"....ook at that person."  
The pink haired brat (Coby, he remembered, although at this stage he wasn't worthy of being remembered just yet) was squeaking loudly in fear and it grated terribly on Zoro's ears.

The conversation between the two in the distance quieted down a bit, before Luffy's voice rose in pitch once again.  
"So he's Zoro, huh...? Looks to me like those ropes are pretty easy to break."

Coby began shrieking again, and Zoro almost missed his cue in his irritation.

"Hey! You. Could you...come over here and untie me? I've been here for 9 days and I'm exhausted." (shit he forgot to say please)  
"Please," he added as an after-note, and didn't miss their incredulous stares.

Five minutes in and he had already messed up.

"I'll repay you," Zoro tacked on, "I could hunt down a fugitive and give you the rewards. I'm not lying, I keep my words."

Coby screeched warnings at Luffy again, but Zoro didn't worry. He knew how this went.

"We'll be fine, he can't kill me. I'm strong too!" Luffy's reassuring grin didn't help Coby in the slightest.

Zoro did his best threatening growl.  
(Coby started to cry, probably)

It wasn't long before the little girl appeared, holding out rice balls as an offering to him.

Zoro grumbled something vaguely a threat, but the girl wasn't dissuaded. 

She offered the food to him again, only for him to threaten to kill her.

This...was probably how it had gone.  
Death threats aside, this was rather embarrassing for him. 

When Helmeppo finally made his grand entrance, with his smug face and ugly hair, Zoro could have sighed with relief.

'Don't pick on little kids,' Helmeppo said, as he stole the rice balls, stomped on them, threatened the girl with a death penalty, and then threw her out.

Helmeppo rambled on about something before leaving, but Zoro was more focused on the rice balls on the ground.  
It *had* been nine days, and even without keeping things as close to the original events as possible, he was starving.

"I'm looking for someone to join my pirate fleet."  
Zoro's head snapped up, and it took all his self-restraint just to not blurt out a "yes," but he managed to stuff that back down his throat and spit out a  
"Pirate? So you just gave up on life and became a crook...?

"It's my dream!," Luffy retorted, "There's nothing wrong with being a pirate!"

"Hm? Don't tell me you're going to set me free and force me to join you." Zoro grinned at him menacingly, (or as menacingly as he could with his own captain) and he carefully kept his tone a cross between threatening and mocking.

Luffy tugged on his hat, shaking his head. "I haven't made up my mind yet, you know? Since everyone thinks you're a bad guy."

Zoro did his best to remember the next thing he was supposed to say, struggling with his words.  
"A bad guy..? Well, I'll n-never join you." Luffy frowned a bit. "Did you stutter?"

Shiit. "No."

Picking up as though he had never been interrupted, he continued, "-because I have something that I need to take care of! I could survive even if you didn't help me. I just need to stay alive for one month, and then the bastard kid promised that he would let me go afterwards."

Zoro narrowed his eyes in something like a challenge. "I'm going to do everything I can to stay alive, and fulfill my dreams."

"...Really? If I were you, I think I'd starve to death in a week."

Oh, and didn't he know it. 

"That's why we're different,"  
One was a bottomless pit and the other was a swordsman, obviously.

"-Go find s-someone else to join you." 

"You stuttered again."  
"No."

The rest went as smoothly as he could remember, (smoother than the rest that he had already messed up, at least,) and when he choked down the remains of the rice balls and told Luffy to pass his compliments on to the little girl, he could feel the approval radiating from Luffy's smile get absorbed by his ego.

It was a while before Luffy reappeared in front of him again, hand raised in a casual greeting.

"It's you again? I told you that I won't become a pirate."

Luffy paid him no heed, choosing to grin at him happily. "I'm Luffy," he said, "and if I loosen up the ropes, then you're gonna join my crew, okay?"

Zoro forced down another "yes, and I'm first mate," and instead rebuked Luffy with a scowl.  
"I have things that I need to do, and besides, I'm not going to be a bad guy like a pirate."

Luffy raised his eyebrow in some sort of incredulity. "Everyone already thinks you're a bad guy."

"I don't care what they say about me. I haven't done one thing that I regretted in the past, and it'll be the same for the future!"  
That was a lie. His first regret happened on this exact day so long ago, when he had demanded the promise they had made to not get in the way of each other's dream. After all, Luffy's dream of becoming Pirate King had at one point become part of his own as well, and that was something he'd fight to the death for.

"-I won't become a pirate!," he continued, internally grateful for Luffy's obstinance.

Their conversation carried on, eventually leading to (on Luffy's part,) blackmail, which he wouldn't have believed had it not happened.  
When Luffy went on to storm the marine base, Coby appeared, a nervous but determined mess.

"He's inside the base? He's too hot-headed..!"

Zoro tried to persuade him into leaving before the marines got him too, but Coby wouldn't budge.  
"You shouldn't have been arrested! I can't stand those kinds of marines!  
I'm going to become a real marine! Just like the way Luffy is determined to become the pirate king!"

Zoro didn't say anything contrary, even though he knew he had before.  
There were no doubts in his heart, this time, because he knew exactly the kind of person his captain was. And he knew that he could, 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥, (because in the end Luffy had done it, his crew by his side the entire time), accomplish his dream, and there wasn't anything, really, that could stop him.

So Zoro just a smiled a little.

(Coby was a little disturbed)

And then suddenly, Coby was shot, his glasses flying off his face and his eyes wide open in shock.

"AAAAAAhH! I've been shot! Bleeding! I'm BLEEDING!"

"I'M GONNA DIE," he sobbed, and Zoro heaved a sigh of relief, because he was (mostly) fine. "Are you alright..?"

Coby cried in protest. 

"Well..run for your life. They're almost here."

But Coby didn't move to run. "No! I've...got to set you free as soon as possible-!"

"Just go. There's no need to worry about me. As long as I stay and stand this for a month, they'll set me free."

"NO! THEY WON'T! THEY SAID THEY'LL KILL YOU IN THREE DAYS!"

Of course, Zoro knew this already, so it was rather hard to get all worked up about it.  
"Nonsense..! The bastard promised me that I'd be freed in a month-"  
"-No! He never intended to keep his promise! That's why Luffy punched him on your behalf...! Because he was toying with you!"

It was still gratifying to hear that, even though he had already heard it once before. The Luffy punching thing, of course, not the Helmeppo thing.

"The navy will never let the two of you off! Please! After I set you free, please help rescue Luffy! I won't force you to become a pirate! However, he's my savior! He's strong, really strong, and as long you two join forces, you'll all be able to escape this town! Definite-!"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!"  
Coby's spiel was interrupted by a bunch of marines, wielding guns and screaming about Morgan.  
Morgan was there, too, screaming about Morgan.

A dozen or so of them circled around the two of them, and Zoro was beginning to doubt the safety of the situation.  
On one hand, he was supposed to wait for Luffy's appearance. On the other hand, there was a chance that something was different and Zoro would be riddled with bullets before Luffy could even get out of the base.

It was all for naught, though, because a second later, Luffy flew out of the base and deflected all the bullets.

"What kind of human are you?," Zoro yelled, but he already knew the answer.

"I'm the one who'll become the pirate king!" was the answering cry, and Zoro couldn't suppress the small laugh that rushed out of his lungs. Because it was the truth, and his belief in his captain could never waver.

Accepting his three swords, he cut himself free, doing his best to replicate the events of the past. 

So he reduced the marines to tears, again. (He couldn't deny the satisfaction that that allowed him)

Facing Luffy, he growled out: "I already told you I'd be a pirate with you...either way, after this incident I'll be an outlaw too, but that's okay, I still have my own goals!  
I'm going to become the world's greatest swordsman! (again, damn..) I don't care if my name is clean, bad or good, it no longer matters! But if you..."

Zoro trailed off, not sure if he could complete what he was going to say. The words that he had regretted long after this, continued to regret even to this day,  
"...If you do something that ends up in the way of my goal, you'll a-apologize on the end of my sword!"

"..You stuttered again," Luffy pointed out.  
"No."

Luffy hmmed, nodding his head. "Well...good! Be the world's number one swordsman! Since you're going to be a part of the pirate king's crew member, if you can't even accomplish something *that* small, then I would be embarrassed too!"

The fight with Morgan was as short as it had been originally, and Zoro did his best to hold back what he could.  
His capabilities definitely weren't anywhere near where they had been when he had...gone back, per say, but they were somewhat better than before.

And in the end, he had gotten to say what he had honestly missed for a while.

"On it....captain!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the more i write the more embarrassed i get lmao


	2. Nami

Nami was running when she came back.

And it wasn't exactly like she could stop, either, because she was apparently being chased by a couple of men with swords.  
"Damn," she cursed under her breath, because this day was one she really couldn't ever forget, namely because she 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘨𝘯𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘥 the map she was clutching in her hand, and it was the one she stole from Buggy the Clown.  
And it was the day she met Luffy.

The only problem was the unconventional way they met and soon became crew-members, and even Nami was having second thoughts about it all.  
Was she supposed to do exactly as she had before? Or could she change some things, accept Luffy's invitation right away? But then there were chances that even 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 would alter the future, change what should have been and should always be, because what if, because of that, they never met Usopp or Sanji or everyone who came after? 

Because the gathering of the Straw-Hat pirates was generally coincidental, Luffy being there at the right place in time, saving them from whatever troubles they were suffering. And Nami would always be grateful. (But that just meant she had 𝘴𝘰 many chances to screw up, and that scared her the most)

And of course, right then, Luffy came flying down from the sky just as before, shot down by Buggy's cannon.

Nami distantly remembered that Zoro had told her about why he had ended up in the sky, and it was stupid enough for her to believe, Luffy being eaten by the bird he was trying to eat.  
It wasn't like that wasn't a weekly occurrence.

But when he landed, getting up with a big sigh of relief, Nami didn't know what to do.  
Because this Luffy, this Luffy was smaller, shorter, his eyes more innocent, less hardened from the evil and wars and cruelties of the world, less scarred by the death of his brother.  
And for a split second, Nami couldn't-

"Oh, 'boss!' You're finally here..I've been waiting for you to save me! I'll leave everything to you!"

That just slipped out, really. 

She managed to escape, but she couldn't help but glance back, because even with her trust in her captain, (not captain yet though, even if he always would be) she couldn't help the tinge of worry that plagued her. There could be something wrong with the timing, and he could be cut down before he even knew it because of a small difference gosh,

And so Nami crawled to the roof top, preparing for her *actual* first meeting with him. Because she had to get it right.  
But watching his anger over losing his hat made her smile a little bit, because she could never forget the pride in his smile when he came back from Red Force, hat-less and exuberantly exclaiming his victory.  
So if she wanted to see that again, she'd just have to work for it.

"Wow! You're really strong, you beat those guys with swords bare-handed!"

Luffy turned to face her, confusion written all over his face. "Who are you?"

Nami could feel her lines piling to the top of her head, and she could recite the words smoothly. "I'm a thief who only steals from pirates, and my name is Nami. Wanna be partners?"

"Only steal from pirates?," Luffy intoned, and Nami could see the apprehension radiating from the twist of his mouth.

"Yeah," she confirmed, "I only steal from pirates. And if we team up, we could get a lot of money!" 

But he rejected her proposal with a blank face, just as he had before. Nami couldn't help the small swell of irritation welling up, even though she knew there was nothing to really get irritated over. This was scripted, after all. 

"So, what's with the hat? You got really mad when they nearly damaged it. Is it expensive?" she asked.

"This is my treasure!," Luffy proclaimed, but his expression was straight and his proclamation lacked the usual energy.  
"Haa...treasure! I wonder if there're any jewels inside it, maybe it's a treasure map?!" 

She mocked it.  
But sometime, along the way, that hat had become 𝘩𝘦𝘳 treasure too, because her captain's treasure was hers as well, and she, along with everyone else, would have died for his dream.  
As he would have for all of theirs.

Their discussion carried into an empty house, with all the villagers having evacuated to a shelter outside the town.

"So..." Luffy said, "Is he that scary? That pirate named Nami?" 

Nami's eyebrows twitched a little, but she had already long gotten used to her captain's stupidity. "*I'm* Nami. The pirate is Buggy.  
And about Buggy, he's a famous pirate, known for his love of cannons. When a bunch of kids from a village where he once stayed made fun of his nose, he used a cannon to wipe out the whole village."

Repeating that, Nami couldn't help but click her tongue distastefully. Because even if she had long gotten used to the cruelties of pirates, hearing about *Buggy's* exploits seemed so strange, having seen him as a weakling for so long.

"But then why isn't there anyone in the village?"

Luffy was still so stupid. 

"I 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 that they're avoiding conflict. What have you been listening to all this time?!" 

"Ahh, so you, you're stealing from these empty houses." Luffy crossed his arms and nodded his head. 

"No, that's, that's despicable! Didn't I just tell you I only steal from pirates? Don't even compare me with those common house robbers, I," Nami paused, her hand sliding down her face, "It's so tiring talking with you."  
But she couldn't help but smile a little. 

"Well, anyways," she continued, "My goal is to get a hundred million beli! And then I'm going to buy a certain village!"

Luffy perked up, a little surprised. "Buy a village? A hundred million is a lot, so you have to steal from a lot of pirates..."

"-I've got a plan for that!," Nami interrupted, "Look! This is the Grand Line map I just stole!  
I'm going to steal some treasure from this Buggy guy, and then I'm going to go to the Grand Line to steal from even greater pirates with even more treasure."

Nami grinned, the idea of money still lighting her smile up. "Waddya think? Don't you wanna team up and earn a bunch? I think you look pretty strong, I could use your power, and then you'll get your share too!"

But as always, Luffy wasn't interested in any of that. "By any chance, do you know how to navigate?"

"Yeah!," Nami confirmed, "Of course I know. Navigation skills, well, there aren't a lot of people who know about it more than I do." Oops, a little bragging.

"-Especially since I love the sea."

"Oh! I see! That's great then!" Luffy's smile curved and became a large grin, his eyes wide in his excitement. "We're also on our way to Grand Line!  
You should come join us as our navigator! Become a member of our pirate crew!"

Oh, Nami wanted to say yes. She really did. 

Instead, she said: "NO WAY."

She sneered at him the best she could, her expression mocking. "I 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 pirates, they're the worst! The things I hate most in this world are pirates themselves! And if you're a pirate, I'll never follow you!"

That was all a lie now, of course, but no one could ever say that Nami was a bad actress. 

"Hey, come on, become our navigator!" Luffy's voice took on a slight whining pitch, but his face was still blank.

Now, coming back and seeing this again, Nami wondered if he still held a grudge against her at this time, because he had always been so open with his expressions. It was a little bit unnerving to see how straight-faced he was. 

But then again, she had gotten this far..she'd have to enact the next part of her plan. And that was really unfortunate. 

"Hey...I'll help you on one condition. Come with me to Buggy's ship."

Luffy ended up tied up in a cage. 

Buggy's crew was celebrating, the party loud and raucous. Nami could remember exactly what she was supposed to do, and pray that the outcome would be the same.  
Out-drinking several of the pirates gathered around her, she noticed Luffy gnawing on the bars of the cage. "How's it going, 'boss?'" 

Luffy scowled at her. "Oh shut up! Let me out! I'm hungry too...give me food."  
Nami complied, and Luffy was instantly sated, chewing loudly. "You, you're a nice person. I guess I'll let you join my crew."

"I don't want to, idi-ot!," Nami frowned at him, because his mulish stubbornness still annoyed her, even now.

"Don't you even see the situation you're in? You're more likely to be sold to some place by these pirat-"

Nami forcefully cut off the words that had slipped out. 

She shouldn't have said that. Not then, not now. The crushing guilt still remained, and she stumbled away from the cage, because she 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯'𝘵 have said that.  
Images of the slavery she had seen at Sabaody, at Grove 1, the mistreatment and deaths of those slaves resurfaced, and Nami could have retched. 

In the end, she couldn't work up the nerve to talk to Luffy again, and so she turned away. She missed Luffy's perplexed stare.

Everything else passed by in a flash. Her 'indecisiveness' in lighting up the fuse, her fighting back against the Buggy pirates, (her weakness becoming more and more apparent, she thought deprecatingly) and then her last ditch attempt to stop the cannon from shooting. 

It was then that Zoro appeared, and Nami had been so, so, relieved. 

"Did you get hurt?" He was asking her, she realized. "Right, no, no, I'm okay.."

"Zorooooo," Luffy whined, "Get me outta this thing, quiiick,"

Zoro's eyes narrowed.  
"You! Is this, is this your idea of fun?!" He exhaled slowly. "You get caught by a bird and then you get carried away, and now when I finally find you, you're in a cage?!"

"Stupid!," he added, because he had to get his point across. (With Luffy you could never be too sure, after all)

Buggy was by his side in a flash, much taller than Zoro remembered. Much, much taller.

"You're definitely Pirate Hunter Zoro. Are you aiming for my head?"

Zoro ignored him.

Buggy sneered, twirling the daggers in his hand. "I'll have to kill you. My name will become even more widely known."

Of course, Buggy ended up in pieces, just like before. The Buggy crew was laughing, and even though Zoro knew the truth, it didn't change the fact that it was rather unsettling to see a crew seem so happy because of their captain's 'death.'

"Zoroo, lemme out!" Luffy had gone back to biting on the iron bars, and Zoro held back a snort. "Right."  
But he didn't bother to try. Internally, Zoro wondered if he had to get stabbed again. Would it change anything important? Did he have to let Buggy impale him with his sword once again? There was that thing with the town and the mayor, but was any of that even affected by his stab wound?

He could see the sword coming before it even reached him, and his first reaction was to grab it by the handle. But in the split-second it took him to do so, he decided to let go and let it pierce his back.

"WA! Stabbing from the back is dirty, you big nose!"  
Buggy's ire found a new target.

This part was important, Zoro remembered. The dagger in Buggy's hand flew for the cage, but he wasn't worried. 

Luffy caught it, after all. 

"I swear, I'll take you lot down!"  
Buggy's mouth curved in a mocking grin. "Take us down? PUHAHAhA you're gonna take me down? You three are gonna die right now, on the spot!  
hAHAHahAHAAaA,"

His laughter went on for a while, Luffy joining in on laughing with him.  
Buggy's smile turned upside down. "No, wait, you aren't supposed to laugh too."

Zoro eyed Buggy's hand. The wound in his back smarted, but it wasn't nearly enough to keep him down. Spending so many years with Luffy had helped his pain tolerance to evolve unimaginably.

But that didn't mean that he wasn't weakened.  
Just a little, probably.

"RUN AWAY! ZORO!," Luffy shouted from inside the cage.

"Ok, ok," Zoro muttered under his breath, because this part had to be timed right. So he dived for the cannon, knocking a couple weaklings aside, aimed it at the Buggy pirates, and lit the fuse as quickly as he could. The agonized screams of the crew-members filled the air. 

When all was said and done, the defeat of Mohji and eventually Buggy at Luffy's hands, the gratitude from the chief and Nami's anger over abandoned treasure, the three of them set sail on the two boats, one stolen from waylaid pirates.

But Nami knew there was something wrong.  
Zoro was different, somehow, than she remembered. And his actions and words didn't match up with those from the past. Had anything been indirectly affected by her own accidental changes? Or was it something else? 

"Hey." 

Nami turned around, only to find Zoro staring at her.  
"Yeah?," she intoned.

Zoro pointed at Luffy's sleeping form, his hat lopsided in his unruly hair. "D'you think you could fix the cuts?"  
Nami scoffed at him with a wave of her hand. "Of course I could, I was going to anyways. I better wait until morning though, who knows how he'd react if he found out I touched it without permission."

She leaned back on the edges of the boat, glancing up at the dark sky. She ended up changing the topic. "Well, what are you two going to do after this?" (not 'you two,' she thought, but 'we,') 

Zoro looked at her strangely, sitting up to face her. "Aren't you coming too?"  
Nami perked up a little bit, slightly confused. "What? Do you actually want me to?"

"Well, I mean, you are a witc-" He froze midsentence, but Nami's eyes were already wide and disbelieving. 

Assuming she took great offense, Zoro retracted his statement. "Wait, shit, sorry, I didn't mean it like that, I," 

"𝘡𝘰𝘳𝘰?"

Now it was Zoro's eyes widening. 

"𝘡𝘰𝘳𝘰, as in the Zoro that's billions in debt with me?"

"𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩?!"

Nami leaned over between the two boats and smacked him lightly on the head.  
"Haha! I can't believe it! You're back too!"

Zoro smirked back at her, but his eyes were gleaming with excitement. "Does that mean we all remember?"

Nami shook her head, since she didn't know either. "We'll just have to find out," she said. 

And then her gaze slid to Luffy. 

"Does he..." She gestured at him, not daring to hope.  
Her jubilant smile dimmed when Zoro sighed. "If only. He's not that great an actor, you know? Idiot can't lie to save his own life." His smile was fond, though.

Nami huffed a small laugh in agreement. "I guess so! We'll just have to take care of him ourselves, then. I'm just so glad I'm not alone! I won't have to worry about messing anything up! We can go and pick up everyone!"

Then she paused, wrinkles from her frown marring her forehead. "If only I had my clima-tact. I'm ridiculously weak right now." Physical strength had never been her strong suit, but her skillset had been rather immense. It was insanely small at the moment.

Zoro snorted. "Tell me about it. I don't think I can even use Haki properly. My body's a lot weaker, too." He sighed again, relaxing into the hardwood. "Next up is Usopp, right? We'll see how the liar fares."

"Yeah." Nami hummed in agreement. "We'll see how he fares."

As they drifted, Nami, slowly nodding off to sleep, heard Zoro whisper, "My debt's been cleared, right? I haven't done anything to warrant any additions yet."

Nami yawned widely, closing her eyes. "No-o way. Your debt carries over through time, idiot."

She fell asleep smiling at Zoro's muffled groan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh i skipped over buggy because i wasn't going to try and write that  
going back and rereading and then trying to write that's kinda annoying so no buggy
> 
> but it should start to diverge more from the original since they know noww


	3. Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> when i went back to reread so i could remember what happened usopp's nose was so small i was shocked
> 
> also i get to write my own dialogue now i was basically just taking lines from the actual story :/  
my dialogue produced significant drop in quality though  
in dialogue, i mean
> 
> there's no quality in my writing whatsoever ༼ʘ̚ل͜ʘ̚༽

Usopp got a splitting headache out of nowhere.

"Captain?!" 

"Captain, what's wrong?" 

"C'mon! We have to go fight! You're the captain!"

It was a knee-jerk reaction for him, really, when he blindly flailed and shrieked, "What's wrong, Luffy?! Where are you?!"  
He was met with nothing but silence.

It took a moment before Usopp realized where he was, and who he was talking to. He blinked twice, rubbed his eyes, and stared intently at the three little kids in front of him. 

"What," he said.

"What," they repeated back to him.

They were familiar faces, and if he didn't know any better, he'd say they 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 be much older than they currently are.

While checking to make sure his nose was still in the right place on his face, (Because that's top priority) he halfheartedly asked the three children, "So, what are we doing?"  
The one with the glasses, (Tamanegi, he reminded himself), told him very assuredly. "Captain Usopp, we were going to fight the Buggy pirates that appeared on shore!"

Buggy pirates?

"Buggy pirates?"

The one with the acorn head gestured furiously. "Buggy pirates! We, the Usopp pirates, are going to fight for our village!" 

"Duh," he added.

Usopp nodded like he knew what was going on. 

"Right, okay, cool, Buggy pirates." 

The problem was that he couldn't ever remember 𝘉𝘶𝘨𝘨𝘺 pirates threatening his hometown. Why would they attack Syrup village, of all places?

He pointed at the shaggy haired one. "You, Pinjin, why are the Buggy pirates here."  
Pinjin shrugged, clearly just as lost as he was. 

"Okay," Usopp said.

And then it hit him.  
Usopp screamed, and his voice was so full of agony that the children freaked out with him.

"WHAT?! WHAT HAPPENED?"

"AHhHH,"

"CAPTAIN USOPP, WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

The screams died down after a while, and Usopp took a few shuddering breaths, forcing himself to calm down. "I, I-can't believe it."

Piiman stared up at him beseechingly, his friends equally held in the suspense.

"I've-I've..." He grabbed at his face, and wailed in despair. 

"I'VE LOST ALL MY MUSCLES."

.  
.

He moved his fingers aside and cracked open one eye in the silence that followed. Three unimpressed faces stare back at him.

"Well, okay," Tamanegi said patronizingly, and sized up Usopp's noodly arms. "I'm sure you have."

"Yeah, I'm really sorry for you," Piiman added.

Pinjin stayed silent, his gaze pitying as he stared at Usopp.

Usopp scowled back at them, but didn't bother retorting because he was too embarrassed.. "I had muscles, okay? They were good ones, too." As he moped, Usopp sighed dramatically. "I wonder how long it'll take to get them back."

He heard a muttered, "I doubt they even existed," but chose not to comment because he was a responsible adult. He did smack Tamanegi on the head, though.

"Anyways," he continued loudly, "We have to go check out what's happening by the shore."

Usopp began to walk towards the cliff-side, but paused when he realized no one had made to follow him. "Uh?"  
All three children were staring at him in awed shock, their gazes wide and very impressed. Usopp couldn't help but preen a little bit, even though he really didn't know what was going on.

"You-you," Piiman stuttered over his words, gesturing wildly. "You're-going willingly?"

Usopp tried to say something, but Tamanegi cut him off. "I can't believe it! You're actually going?"

Usopp frowned, and tried to talk again, but then Piiman snarled at him. Taken aback, Usopp looked at him incredulously.  
"You're an impostor, aren't you?!"

What, Usopp thought.

"What."

Piiman's snarl deepened into a growl. "The real captain Usopp would never be that brave!"

Ouch. 

"Yeah! He's captain of the Usopp pirates, and he would never talk about his muscles because he's too self-conscious about his pathetic lack of strength!"  
These children were 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯.

"And captain Usopp would always have to talk about being captain every ten minutes, because he's desperate to be someone who matters!"

But then before Usopp could even stop himself, the words came spewing out of his mouth. "Who's captain?! I'm the sniper of the Strawhat Pirates!"  
Big mistake on his part.

The Usopp pirates, as they had been branded, ended up pushing him off the cliff. It was great. He was kinda proud of them, actually.  
(But not really, because he was probably going to go and beat them up for this)

"You could have killed me, idiots!," he screamed up into the sky from where he'd been lying on his back.

"We were trying to!" came echoing back at him, and Usopp couldn't help but sigh forlornly. 

He had to take a moment (or two) to realize something very important. He was under the cliff, very close to the water, and the Buggy pirates were apparently here somewhere. On the off chance that they could find him, he'd probably get killed. On the other hand, since he could barely move, he'd more likely get killed through dehydration, starvation, or maybe a possible concussion.  
Offhandedly, he couldn't help but wonder if he could get killed by a rhinoceros beetle. Would it bite his nose off? His nose *was* a big target. Rhinoceros beetles seemed to really like (read: hate) his nose, for whatever reason. Heracles stood out prominently in his mind.

"Ugh," he muttered, closing his eyes. It wouldn't do him any good to get killed this early. He had years to go yet. His nose, too. 

"-ou okay?"  
Usopp jolted upwards, and winced when his spine made a small popping noise. Blinking furiously to get sand out of his eyes, he took a more careful look at his surroundings.  
As a matter of fact, there actually 𝘸𝘢𝘴 a boat with Buggy's jolly roger on it, and it was reaallly close by.  
There were also 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 that were very close by, but they definitely weren't Buggy's pirates. 

"Hello? Are you okay?"

It was Nami.

Heart racing a little, because something was kind of off, this wasn't like the Nami he had first met, he croaked out a reply. "Yeah..I'm fine."

She smiled slightly at him, her eyebrows raised. "Okay then. Why are you down here?"  
Usopp didn't know how to respond. Really.  
Could he tell her that he had been shoved off the cliff by three children who had insulted his muscles? She'd laugh at him. And then probably hit him.

Usopp shivered a little bit. 

"I was fighting," (he could twist the truth a *little* bit, right?) "and out of the seventy men, only one survived and managed to throw me down here, and so-"

"Wow. His lying got really toned down, didn't it?"  
Usopp's eyes snapped to the person behind Nami. He couldn't see whoever it was properly because of the sunlight's glare, only the silhouette framed with a faint glow visible to him, but he knew that voice.

"Zo..ro?"

Nami's grin grew even wider, and she crouched down to meet him face-to-face.  
"What do you remember, Usopp?"

He looked at her without any comprehension whatsoever, (and while there was mounting glee climbing up his spine at the prospect of 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭, was it real?) he hesitantly shook his head and said, "I'm not sure what you mean."  
(But really, he probably did, even if something in him was scorning himself for even considering something so absurd-)

And then he whispered, "Are we, are we all back in the past? Do you remember everything too? Is that what you mean?"  
Nami opened her mouth to speak, but she never got a word out.

"-Hey! Hey, who's that? Who are you? I thought you were dead when I saw you on the ground earlier!" Luffy giggled at him from behind Zoro. "You looked like a dead body!"

And of course, this only confused Usopp more. "Are you not...?" Usopp gesticulated at the three of them, his eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.  
"Are you not all from the future?"

There was a second of silence.  
And then Nami lunged for his mouth, covering it with Zoro's bandanna. Both Usopp's muffled cry ("GHMANPH?") and Zoro's indignant complaint ("HEY THAT'S MINE) were stifled by Luffy's sudden "WHAT" and Nami's loud growl of frustration. 

"You," Nami hissed into his ear, "you shut up. Don't talk for another five minutes, we have to do damage control now."

Zoro was still mourning the loss of his bandanna, now covered in Usopp's spit, but he nodded once at Nami and turned to Luffy. "Luffy, come with me," he uttered lowly, and Luffy nodded a little reluctantly back at him. "Is something wrong? What happened? What does he mean future?" But Zoro didn't answer any of his questions, instead tugging on his elbow gently and ushering him to the other side of the shoreline.  
The footprints they left in the sand were soon swept away by the rising tide.

Nami released her grip on Usopp's mouth.  
She wasn't actually angry, Usopp could see that much, but her mouth was tense in a frown and oh boy- that didn't spell good news for him.

"-I didn't do it." were the first words that came to mind. The edges of Nami's lips tilted upwards in a slight smirk, and she nodded slowly.  
"Riight," she drawled, but the worried look in her eyes didn't ease up. "I'd totally believe you, the biggest liar in all the seas." (So what 𝘥𝘪𝘥 he do?) "I'm not in trouble?" he asked, not missing the exasperated eye-roll she sent his way.  
"No, you aren't. But," she continued, "we have some things to discuss. They're..really important."

Usopp exhaled slowly. "So, you guys really are from the future, right?"  
She grinned in confirmation.  
He couldn't help the joy threatening to bubble up in his chest, and sprung to his feet. "Can we go talk to the others, too?" 

"No."  
Her response was sharp. 

Usopp swallowed, his throat bobbing. "Luffy..Luffy didn't come back, did he?"  
Nami nodded tersely, and that was all the confirmation he needed.

"I..see." The disappointment was crushing, mingling with all of his insecurities. 

"Do you..." Usopp looked down and struggled with his words, unsure of what to say. "you think he'll still want me on his crew?" (his crew, not 𝘵𝘩𝘦 crew, because as it was, Usopp wasn't sure where he stood)

Usopp didn't need to fake bravado with the Strawhats. His lies and...half-truths were seen right through, and he never needed to deny the fact that he was scared when he was with them.  
Because for all their teasing and mocking, they 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 him. They knew that he was a liar and coward, knew it too well. They had known that he had been (currently was) incompetent and somewhat useless, known that he was ridiculous and stupid to boot.  
They accepted him nonetheless. They were a family. (were, he said to himself, because how could he get his hopes up?) 

And Usopp couldn't imagine a life without any one of them. 

"I-diot." Usopp's eyes snapped up to meet Nami's. "Are you kidding me? Usopp, you already know the answer to that."  
She whacked him lightly with Zoro's bandanna, and made a face at him. "You know how Luffy is, he isn't going to shun you or anything like that. And besides," Nami paused here, the curve of her mouth relaxing into an easy smile, "I don't know what you're thinking, but you're a part of our crew. Even if Luffy tried to exclude you, which won't happen, obviously, the rest of us will always be there to back you up."

Usopp sniffed and wiped his dry nose in an attempt to hide how touched he was with dramatics. "Yeah..."

"But Usopp, listen." Nami said seriously, "Zoro and I have been trying to keep the fact that we're- from the past-future from Luffy."

"You guys are LYING to him?" 

Nami shot him a withering glare and Usopp was properly cowed. "Right, sorry, hypocrite here ahahah.." he chuckled weakly.

"Anyways," she continued, "since we are, we need to be ensured that you can do the same. We'll.. tell him the truth when we're all reunited." But even as she spoke with conviction, there was an undertone of guilt that Usopp didn't miss. 

He nodded his assent. 

There were so many things he wanted to ask. So many problems and theories and ridiculous questions that would be utterly unfathomable in any other situation, but here-here, he really had no idea what was going on. Why were Nami and Zoro accepting everything so easily? Was there no catch to this, no ultimate endgame that would result in something terrible? Did something happen to Luffy that had caused him to..not come back?  
Chills went down his spine at the thought.

And then before he knew it, Nami was pulling him up to his feet by his forearm. "C'mon, Usopp, let's go meet up with Zoro and Luffy now. Remember what I said." She shot him a pointed look.  
"Yeah." Usopp let her lead him to the other side of the shore, where he could see Zoro and Luffy standing. For whatever reason, however, she ended up pulling him into the topiary and making him crawl through the shrubs. 

"Why do we," Usopp whispered as a branch smacked his face, (his nose smacked it back though), "need to crawl through here? Are we hiding from them?"

Nami's eyes were narrowed in a glare as she shushed him, and she quietly whispered back, "We're going to have to slide into the conversation smooothly." She emphasized the 'oos. "We'll scope out the current topic they're talking about and join in at the perfect time."

"But-why?" 

"Shut, Usopp. We can't have Luffy getting suspicious."

"What does that even-"  
Usopp cut himself off when they got within hearing range of Zoro and Luffy's conversation. Nami abruptly stopped moving and tugged on his hair, dragging him down into a crouching position where they could watch their captain and swordsman talk. 

Honestly, Usopp couldn't shake the vague, uncomfortable, feeling that they were peeping on something private. They were probably talking about something important, after all-

"-kay, Luffy, you see, when a man and a woman-"

"-Like you and Nami-"

"-no, listen, not me, say like Usopp,-"

"-Nami's a man?!-"

"-no what the hell-"

"-it's okay Zoro, I get it-"

"What the hell are they talking about?," Nami hissed. 

"-Luffy listen it's not like that-"

"-yes, it is, I know it is, I saw it, okay? I wasn't actually sleeping-"

"-what?! Oh shit, what'd you see-"

"-I already know and I won't judge you Zoro, you're apart of my crew now-"

"-what-"

"-I know you love your swords very much, and I understand, okay? I love my hat too, even though it isn't the same way-"

"-no way-"

"-I didn't mean to see, but I know you-"

"-stop, stop, what are we even-"

"-I would never do that to my hat, but I get it-"

"-stop interrupting me, Luffy no-"

"-everyone will accept you, otherwise they'll have to deal with me, okay? Even if you're a cootie-"

"-𝘊𝘖𝘜𝘛𝘜𝘙𝘌, Luffy, not cootie, and stop I need to tell you-"

"-about what? Nami and the other guy-"

"OKAY. Okay, stop." Nami gave up and stood from where she had been hiding in the bushes, her arms crossed, an exasperated scowl on her face. "I was going to enter your conversation casually, but I don't even know what you two are doing. You mentioned me twice, so I'm intervening. You." She pointed at Zoro. "Explain."

Zoro gaped at her a little bit, clearly somewhat flustered for whatever reason. "Wait..I think we shouldn't talk right now-"

"And 𝘸𝘩𝘺, is that, exactly?" Nami demanded.

He mouthed a 'future' to her as subtly as he could, but Luffy ended up catching the movement. Of course, he misinterpreted it.

"Me and Zoro were talking about cooties!" he exclaimed.

"-no, Luffy, not cooties, c o u t u r e s." Zoro said.

"...cooties."

"I just spelled it out for you."

"-cooties." Luffy insisted.

Luffy's snoring filled the air as the Going Merry rocked gently over the ocean. 

Zoro, Nami, and Usopp sat very seriously around a table they had found and brought on board. 

"We're using this table as a designated discussion area at night to talk about important things," Nami decided, folding her fingers in front of her.

"Because Luffy has his bedtime." she added.

Zoro snorted. "Yeah. He's a heavy enough sleeper that he won't wake up in the middle of the night unless he's woken up by someone or tempted by...meat."

"Sanji's not here yet," Usopp pointed out.

"He's next, remember? We're going to go for the sea restaurant and convince him to come with us." 

"But we could always skip him.." Zoro muttered quietly, only to get lightly smacked across the head by Nami. He grimaced at her, and ground out a "-fine. He's a cook. I get it."

Usopp fiddled with his slingshot, the familiarly coarse wood rough against his skin. His hands didn't have the callouses that he had had in the future, didn't have the same strength or the same agility that he had gained from his time with Heracles. His aim was as good as ever, he had to admit (proudly), but there was so much missing that everything felt...surreal. 

"So, Usopp."  
He glanced up at Nami. "How was your departure with your *Usopp Pirates* this time?" Her voice was teasing, her tone light but not mocking, and Usopp could see that she was genuinely curious.

"It was a lot like last time," he started, "but just a little different."

Khaladore, or 𝘒𝘶𝘳𝘰, had enacted the same betrayal that Usopp had already seen once before, both with Kaya and with his own crew-mates. The Usopp Pirates had ended up coming to his aid once again, eventually getting over their suspicions of an impostor, because 'no one else is that cowardly or that good at lying.' Usopp was reluctantly grateful. (They meant well, anyways)

The tearful goodbye was no different from before, and it was almost uncanny how Usopp had known exactly what to say at the right time.

"That..really doesn't tell me anything, y'know."  
Usopp smiled back at her sheepishly in response.

"They actually pushed me off the cliff earlier, because they thought I was an impostor for whatever reason." And then, almost like a reflex, he added, "-but my manliness and overall amazingness soon convinced them that it was really I, the great Usopp." 

Zoro huffed out a derisive laugh from his place next to Usopp, his head resting in the crook of his arm. "You haven't changed at all. Your lies still suck, by the way."

Usopp would have whacked him on the head, too, if he hadn't been so merciful. (read: scared)

"But you know, I left Kaya on better terms this time. I'll visit her again soon." Usopp said softly.

"Sappy." Zoro muttered under his breath, before being glared at by Nami. A few awkward moments passed before Nami's eyes lit up, and the beginnings of a smirk quirked her mouth.

"Zoro, about your talk earlier, what did Luffy see? What was that about you and your swooords...?"

Zoro instantly paled (it was barely noticeable, but it was there) and turned away, unwilling to meet her eyes. "Nothing," he grumbled, and Nami stifled a giggle. She drummed her fingers on the table, leaning in closer to look at him face-to-face.  
"If you won't talk about that, then how about this: why were you talking about 𝘮𝘦?" Her sweet tone warped into a snarl.

Usopp squeaked a little despite himself at the way Nami spoke. He could get caught up in the collateral damage if things escalated, after all.  
(But he wasn't *really* scared, he could handle anything. 

Or so he told himself)

"Shut up, witch."  
Oh no.

This was gonna be a fight.

Strangely enough, however, Nami wasn't provoked by the insult. Instead, she leaned back in her chair, sighed heavily, and shot Zoro a peeved look. "If this is about that debt you owe me, you're not getting out of that, no matter what. You are going to pay me every last beli, or I will wring the money out of you with my bare hands." The chair's legs slammed back onto the ground at the end of her words.

"Besides," she continued, "even though your debt is in the billions, I'll only increase the interest rate if you don't start trying to pay me back." 

Zoro scowled even harder, his swords clanking against each other as he twisted around to talk to her again. "Look, it's not about that, okay? Greedy 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘤𝘩," he added under his breath, "and I wasn't talking smack about you behind your back, I was *trying* to resolve the situation that he," here Zoro jabbed a thumb in Usopp's direction, "caused."

Usopp shrunk in his seat a little.

Zoro seemed to hesitate for a moment, before he reluctantly said, "I had to think of something that would sound like 'future,' and so now we're clothing designers. So- witch. You and Usopp will have to learn how to sew."

He nodded his head decisively, closing his eyes and refusing to hear any disagreement.

"No way," Nami said.

Usopp echoed her sentiment with a 'hmph.'

Obviously, it was all for naught, because Zoro was as stubborn as Luffy over the 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵 things. "You are. 𝘐'𝘮 not going to do it, so the two of you will."

Nami sucked in a breath, counted to three, and then exhaled. "You'll pay me 500 beli for every new skill I learn."

Zoro looked at her, aghast. "What? No! That's extortion you damn witch-" he cursed, eyes narrowed in a glare. 

"Then learn to sew yourself." 

"YEah," Usopp echoed, "learn to sew yourself. I'm not going to." Zoro changed the target of his ire and the glare moved on to him. Usopp could vaguely feel the sweat running down his face.  
"I-I mean-" he began to croak out, but Zoro just closed his eyes tiredly and slumped in his chair. He dragged his hand down his face, weariness clear in his expression. 

"Why are we even lying to him."  
The mood became somber, the sudden drop in temperature sending shivers down Usopp's spine.  
They had been avoiding this topic for a while now, that much was apparent. But Usopp's apprehension and Zoro's caution and Nami's guilt had dragged them all into a large lie that they wouldn't be able to get out of. But they had a reason, at least.  
(Didn't they?)

Nami was the first to speak.  
"We'll have to..find everyone else first. Only then can we tell him the truth-because our bonds and trust in each other come first, don't they? What if he doesn't trust us because of all this? What if we mess up because we changed something that wasn't meant to be changed? There'd be a possibility that we'd never see the rest of our crew again. We'll have to let this run it's natural course-" A strange blunt noise echoed from somewhere in the ship.

"GHOST," Usopp squealed dramatically, and Nami rolled her eyes. "It was just cargo or something, it must've fallen over because of the way the ship's moving-"

"He's our captain," Zoro cut in sharply, propping his feet up onto the table. He crossed his arms behind his head and gazed up at the wooden ceiling, conflicting emotions warring over his face. (Barely visible, but still there)

"-and as our captain, he's going to have to know everything." Zoro's lips twitched as he spoke. "And so when the time comes, we'll tell him everything. And that means 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨." 

Awkward silence once more.

Usopp found his voice again, clearing his throat of the gunk that had been resting there. (there wasn't really gunk, but the moisture in his eyes and the clogging of his nose told him what it really was) 

"We'll do just that." he said assuredly. "And when we do, we'll just have to hope he'll understand why we hid the truth."

"Y-eah," Nami sighed. She lay her head on the table and closed her eyes, sprawling both her hands all over the table. (She also surreptitiously knocked Zoro's feet down to the ground, ignoring his vehement 'Oi-!')

"We'll just have to hope he understands."

The three of them ended up falling asleep at the table.

None of them had noticed that the ship had gone completely silent a while ago.

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/183215441@N07/48485183026/in/dateposted/)

In the morning, Luffy greeted them with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zoro got his bandanna back but he only wore it after he washed it at least seven times in the ocean  
because of usopp spit
> 
> make of the ending what you will lmao i did a bad sketch because i didn't want to write that part  
now it's time for misunderstandings :V
> 
> more explanations and clarity in the next chapter probably i skipped lots of things in this one


End file.
